Thinking About Booking Summer Travel, Read This First!

 

Thinking about crossing the pond this summer? What about heading to Hawaii? Just getting around to making your summer plans? In the past 24 hours, I have received multiple emails from friends wanting to find out how they can travel FREE this summer. 

Usually, I recommend planning at least one year ahead to travel FREE, and if you are interested, click here to find out about the club at Families Fly FREE. But I do have one secret way to score some FREE travel this summer. In fact, I just recommended this secret to a friend wanting to travel end of May.

And I'm going to share this trick with you right now. 

 It has to do with the Capital One Venture X and Venture Rewards cards. These cards have a unique travel eraser tool. So here's the secret, if you charge your travel to these cards to reach the minimum spend, you can actually erase the travel purchase when you get the bonus and BEFORE you ever have to pay the balance due. 

Capital One will actually give you the bonus immediately when you spend the minimum and BEFORE you pay the bill. They do not make you wait until after you pay the balance like most Chase credit cards. 

That means you can actually buy the flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises, and tours as part of your minimum spend and then just erase those purchases. 

Following me here?

Thinking About Booking Summer Travel, Read This First! 

I just did that exact thing for my trip to Ireland. 

Plus the Venture X card comes with a $300 travel credit when you purchase your travel through the Capital One Travel Portal AND 5x points on flights AND 10x points on hotels and car rentals. 

So let's look at my friend's situation. She has already secured her flights to Maui for end of May using her Southwest companion pass, a buy one, get one pass for two years and one of the best travel benefits out there. Awesome! 

Now she would like to splurge for her birthday and stay at the Four Seasons or similar type hotel. But those hotels are running $1,600 per room per night. Ouch. 

If we had more time, we may use another strategy, but since this travel is happening in just a few weeks, I believe this is the best and probably the only option unless of course you have a stash of 500,000 points. 

Here's the strategy:

1. My friend and her partner EACH open a Capital One Venture X card. My friend should open hers and then immediately send her partner a referral link so he can open his card. The referral is worth 25,000 points. 

2. The card bonus offer right now is 75,000 bonus points for a $4,000 minimum spend

3. Purchase 3 hotel nights through the Capital One Travel Portal on my friend's card and 2 hotel nights through the portal on her partner's card. 

4. Quickly, charge another $640 on the partner's Capital One credit card to reach the minimum spend. Maybe a few snorkeling trips in Maui! 

5. The bonus should post pretty quickly, plus the 10x points on the hotel purchase so the purchase will yield 75,000 + 50,400 or 125,400 on my friend's account. 

5. Use the travel eraser to erase nearly one night at the hotel about a $1,300 value. 

6. The $300 statement credit will post immediately as well bringing the annual fee down to just $95. 

7. The referral will net another 25,000 points and you have 90 days to erase travel purchases so once that posts, erase another $250. Since you can erase partial payments, you can continue to chip away. 

Now do the same thing on the partner's Capital One card and bam, at least 2 nights are FREE. If you decide to try this trick, please use my referral link to support this blog. 

Thinking About Booking Summer Travel, Read This First! 

If you want your entire trip to be FREE, you need to plan in advance and I recommend joining me at Families Fly FREE. We have teamed up with my friend and national travel blogger Lyn. She has created a simple system to help families fly free. 

If you would like to check them out, click here and let Lyn know I sent you. :) I'll be sharing testimonials from some happy members and I'll let you know when I'll be offering webinars. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

You could say that I am so ready to travel that the next year is going to be awesome or a bit crazy. 

Days after the world started to shut down back in March 2020, my family of 5 were supposed to leave on an epic adventure to Santiago, Chile, surf near Vina Del Mar, hike the glacier in El Calafate Argentina and tango in Buenos Aires.

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

The entire 2.5 week trip was free. The flights, most of the very inexpensive airbnb’s, the car rental, even the hike on the glacier. Yep, all booked with points, miles or erased with our Capital One Venture card. 

And poof, in a matter of days, instead of us going on an epic adventure, my daughter who was studying in Chile came home and finished her semester abroad in our living room. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

Two years later, it’s time to resurrect the trip. So the question, things have changed, the world has changed, airline alliances have changed, so could we do it again! 
The answer is yes. And I'm going to show you how I did it. Hint, it has to do with Marriott Bonvoy points. 

One of my big secrets to flying a family of 5 is to fly when no one else wants to. Think overnight flights. Think holidays. The biggest holiday Christmas. Yep, no one wants to fly on Christmas Day except us. So the deals are there to be had. 

I was able to score 5 one way tickets with points from Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile without too much trouble. For 25,000 American Airlines points each, all of us on the same flight booked directly on the American Airlines website. Very straightforward. I had collected more than enough American miles to buy these tickets. No problem. 

You may be thinking to yourself that scoring one way tickets is silly. You may be right. I am betting on the fact that I can find a return for five people with points. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

Now my second tip about flying over the holidays. Even though no one wants to fly on Christmas Day, they sure want to fly over the holidays. So you need to be ready. Flights open approximately 330 days in advance. You want to be ready to book with your points in hand when that happens. You can actually watch the calendar advance day by day on the website so you will know exactly when the flights will open. 
The hardest part is to figure out exactly how many points you will need. That's why I love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards just in case I need to top off a few more points. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

For this trip, I checked American return flights and they were outrageous, more than 90,000 miles per ticket. I started looking at other airlines and it turned out that Delta seemed to offering return trips from Buenos Aires for 25,000 miles each as consistently as the days were being released. So I decided to go for it. 

Now I didn't have very many Delta Airlines miles, but I had a lot of Marriott Bonvoy points. Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to dozens of different airlines at 3:1 and for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer, you get an additional 5,000 airline miles. So for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points, you get 25,000 airline miles. Follow me?

With the devaluation approaching this past March, I decided to cash in. For 5 return flights from Buenos Aires, I would need 300,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Once I transferred these points to Delta Airlines, it would total 125,000 Delta miles enough for all the flights. You can check out a video that shows you exactly how to transfer the points here. I do recommend doing the transfer in 60,000 point increments and the names on both accounts need to match exactly. 

Allow up to 2 weeks for the points to transfer, but in my experience, it only takes a few days unless there is a problem. 

Once the points settle into your account and the flights open up, bam! It's that easy. 

If you do not have any Marriott Bonvoy points, there is a new 100,000 bonus offer available with the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant. It has a $5,000 minimum spend and a $450 annual fee. BUT it also has a $300 Marriott credit, $100 Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit and Priority Pass Lounge Membership. If you decide to apply for this card, please consider using my referral link. 

By the way, AlmostFREEFamilyTravel has teamed up with Families Fly FREE to bring more value to you. If you would like to check them out, click here and let Lyn know I sent you. :) I'll be sharing testimonials from some happy members and I'll let you know when I'll be offering webinars. 

Off The Beaten Track In Durham, NC

 

One of the more off the beaten path restaurants in Durham, NC is the Nasher Museum Cafe located inside the Duke University Nasher Museum. Don't be put off that this restaurant is on the Duke University campus. The food is not like any dining hall you have ever been to before. The museum itself is an impressive building with a massive skylight roof. 

The Nasher contains a permanent exhibit of ceramics, art and lithographs plus two temporary exhibit halls. When we were there, the temporary exhibits displayed works from North Carolina artists and political expressionism. Both fascinating and highly recommended.

The Nasher Museum Cafe is a recognized 2017 Diners Choice Award and one of America's Top 100 brunch spots. It also features seasonal local ingredients like presented in this delicious butternut squash salad. 

The dinner menu changes weekly. The day we were there the host said the menu wasn't even available until closer to 4pm since it was a new week. We enjoyed seafood risotto, lemon linguine and swordfish. All delicious. We started with a cheese plate and a salad. Both very good.

The dessert was a molten lava cake with vanilla bean ice cream. YUM!

The Nasher Museum Cafe is listed on open table, but if the time is not available that you prefer, definitely give them a call and see if they can work out something for you. One quirky sidenote, if you happen to have a Duke student, they can use their food points at the Nasher. For the rest of us, plan to spend about $50 per person. Of course, use a credit card that gives you bonus points for dining like our favorite card the Chase Sapphire Preferred which is offering a whopping 80,000 bonus right now. 

New 80,000 Bonus Offer On My Favorite Credit Card

 

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited! The 80,000 bonus offer is back for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. This is one of my all time favorite credit cards. Chase Ultimate Reward points are my favorite because they are so flexible. You can transfer them to dozens of different airlines including Southwest, several hotel chains (Hyatt, IHG and Marriott), pay yourself back in cash and use the points in the travel portal. You can read all about my tricks to getting the most value out of Chase Ultimate Reward points here. 

New 80,000 Bonus Offer On My Favorite Credit Card

In fact, I just booked a round trip flight from Washington, DC to Dublin, Ireland for just 33,000 points and no fuel charges. Amazing! So this offer is worth approximately $1,000 in FREE travel. 

The benefit of booking through the travel portal is that you can book any flight for points. You don't have to accumulate enough miles or points on one single airline. 

New 80,000 Bonus Offer On My Favorite Credit Card

Here's the offer: 

• spend $4,000 in three months 
• $95 annual fee
• $50 annual hotel credit when you book through the portal 
• 5x Chase points on travel booked through the portal
• 2x Chase points any travel purchases
• 3x Chase points on online grocery purchases
• Chase points are worth 25% in the travel portal and when redeemed through the pay yourself back tool in rotating categories
• 3x Chase points on dining
• 3x Chase points on streaming services
• 10% anniversary points boost 

You are eligible for this offer IF you do not currently hold this card AND have not received the bonus in the past four years.

If you decide to apply for this card and you should, consider using my referral link so I can continue to keep you updated on the best ways to fly FREE. 

New 120,000 IHG Bonus Offer - Wow!

There is a new 120,000 IHG bonus offer out there so the question is should you jump on it and then what can you do with the points? I just used some of those IHG points for a week stay in Dublin, Ireland. Pretty awesome!

New 120,000 IHG Bonus Offer - Wow! 

 But is it right for you? First, let's take a look at the offers. 

• IHG Traveler Rewards - Initial bonus: earn 120,000 bonus points after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening. This is a no annual fee card. 
• IHG Premier - Initial Bonus: earn 140,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening. This card carries a $99 annual fee. 

New 120,000 IHG Bonus Offer - Wow! 

You are eligible to apply for these cards if you do not currrently have a personal IHG card and have not received the bonus in the past 24 months. 

These cards will count towards your 5/24 status. Chase allows you to only open 5 cards every 24 months. Business cards typically do not count towards 5/24. 

IHG also has a big bonus on its business card. 

• IHG Premier Business - Initial Bonus: earn 140,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening. This card carries a $99 annual fee. $100 Global Entry credit and trip interruption/cancellation insurance. 

All the cards include a FREE night anniversary credit. 

Now before you jump at this, consider IHG brand hotels include Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza. 

New 120,000 IHG Bonus Offer - Wow!

For families, Holiday Inn Express and Candlewood Suites are good options. Both offer breakfast included and Candlewood Suites offers rooms that can fit a family of five or more. However, both are considered budget hotel chains. 

So now the question is what can you do with IHG points? The best benefit of IHG points is the fourth night redemption. If you book three nights, you get the 4th night FREE. Now I don't often stay in the same place 4 nights in a row, but if you do, this could be a great bonus for you. Or like me it may convince you to stay somewhere a bit longer. 

New 120,000 IHG Bonus Offer - Wow!

For our stay in Dublin, Ireland, I chose to stay in the Holiday Inn Express Dublin. You can fit four in a room, always a bonus plus it includes breakfast. Bonus! So we stayed there for five nights, a bit longer than we normally would, but it's FREE.

We used points for three nights, fourth night FREE and one anniversary night credit. 

IHG uses dynamic pricing so the rooms can range from 10,000 points per night to 100,000 points per night. My advice, book early!